10 Cities That Have Changed the Most

MagnifyMoney.com | October 23, 2017

The city of Austin, Texas, has been named the “most changed” in the country over the last decade, with the most dynamic transformations to its housing market, incomes, crime rates, and economy compared to any other large U.S. metro, according to a new analysis by MagnifyMoney, a subsidiary of LendingTree. In fact, several Texas cities topped the list of most evolved economies and housing markets in the last 10 years.
MagnifyMoney analyzed data from 2006 to 2016 for the 50 largest cities, factoring in commute times, incomes, housing prices, crime rates, and building permits, among other items. “Change isn’t necessarily a good or bad thing,” MagnifyMoney notes in a report on its findings. “Big growth in commute times and rents can be negative, but they can also be a function of positive developments like job and income growth. Similarly, places without as much change could be more attractive to people working their way up the salary ladder or those who are retired and living on fixed incomes, offering more affordable housing and less congestion.”
The following cities topped MagnifyMoney’s list as seeing the most dramatic change over the past 10 years:
Austin, Texas
Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas
Houston
Nashville, Tenn.
Portland, Ore.
Denver
Raleigh, N.C.
San Antonio
Charlotte, N.C.
San Jose, Calif.
Other cities have stayed virtually the same over the past decade, with Birmingham, Ala., being the least changed—falling on the bottom of MagnifyMoney’s list of 50 most changed cities. These metros rounded out the bottom five: Milwaukee (number 49), New Orleans (number 48), Buffalo, N.Y. (number 47), and Indianapolis (number 46).